10

journey to the forks

“Hit’s a far piece,” Dan said. “I’m afraid we won’t make it against dusty dark.” We squatted down in the road and rested on the edge of a clay rut. Dan set his poke on the crust of a mule’s track, and I lifted the budget off my shoulder. The cloth was damp underneath.

“We ought never thought to be scholars,” Dan said.

The sun-ball had turned over the ridge above Gideon Whitfield’s farm, and it was hot in the valley. Grackles walked the top rail of a fence, breathing with open beaks. They paused and looked at us, their legs wide apart and rusty backs arched.

“I figured you would get homesick before we reached the forks of Troublesome,” I said. “I knowed it from the time we left Sporty.”

Dan drew his thin legs together and propped his chin on his knees. “If I was growed up as old as you,” he said, studying his toes, “I wouldn’t care. I’d not mind my hand.”

“Writing hain’t done with your left hand,” I said. “It won’t get in the way of learning.”

“I shouldn’t of been playing at the sawmill,” Dan said. “Two fingers gone is a hurting sight.”

“By and by it will seem plumb natural,” I said. “In a little while they’ll forget it. The scholars won’t notice.”

The grackles called harshly from the rail fence.

“We had better eat the apples while we’re setting,” I said. Uncle Jolly had given them to us when we stopped at his house for a drink of water in passing. “You take the Wilburn,” I told him, for it was the largest. “I favor the Pippin because it pops when I bite it.”

Dan wrapped the seeds in a scrap of paper torn from the poke. I got up, lifting the budget, a meal sack with our clothes in it.

“It’s near on to six miles farther to the forks,” I said. To spell me, Dan asked to carry the budget a ways. I told him, “The load would break you down.” I did let him pack my calf boots. I had on my clodhoppers. He tied the strings into a bow and hung them with his own about his neck.

We trudged on, stepping among hardened clumps of mud and wheel-brightened rocks. Cow bells clanked in a redbud thicket on the hills, and a calf bellowed. A catbird mewed in a persimmon tree. I couldn’t spot it, but Dan glimpsed it flicking its tail feathers. Dan was tiring now. He stumped his sore big toe twice, crying some each occasion.

“You’ll have to stop dragging your feet or put on your shoes,” I said.

“My feet would get raw as a beef if’n I wore shoes the whole trip,” Dan declared. “Mine are full of pinchers. Did I have a drop of water on my toe, it would ease it.”

Farther along we discovered a spring drip, and Dan held his foot under it. He wanted to skin up the bank to where the water seeped from the ground. “There might be a water dog* sticking its neck out of the mud,” he insisted. I shook my head, and we went on, the sun in our faces, the road curving beyond sight.

“I’ve heard they do strange things at the Settlement School at the forks,” Dan said, “but I’ve forgot what they are.”

“They have a great bell hung on a pole,” I recounted, “and they ring it to get out of bed in the morning and pull on it to memory themselves to eat. Between classes in their schoolhouse they ring a sheep bell.” Menifee Thomas had told me a lot. “Menifee says it’s crazy the washing and scrubbing and sweeping they do. They fairly peel the floors with brushes every Saturday.” And Menifee has spoken of the many books in the school. Stored in my head were titles of the three Sim Brannon’s son Commodore had told me about at Houndshell.

“I bet hit’s the truth,” Dan said.

“Mommy speaks it’s unhealthy keeping dust brushed up in the air and forever wetting the boards,” said I. “And Menifee claims they’ve got a jillion cows in a barn. They take soap and a broom and scrub every cow before they milk. Menifee swears they’ll next begin brushing the cows’ teeth.”

“I bet hit’s the truth,” Dan said.

“But the pranking with the critters doesn’t seem to hurt them. They give so much milk everybody has a God’s plenty.”

The sun-ball tipped the beech trees on the ridge. It grew cooler. We paused again in a horsemint patch, Dan spitting on his big toe, slackening the pain. He said, “I ought not to a-dreamt to go to the Settlement School.”

“There never was a pure scholar amongst all of our kin,” I reminded. “Not a one who went clear through the books and come out on yon side. I’m of an opinion we ought to do it. And Pap says if we make it, he’ll send Holly. And Mittie Hyden’s folks might send her.” I hadn’t forgotten Mittie Hyden. Pap must have known something I hadn’t suspected he knew.

“Hit’ll take an awful spell of time,” Dan said.

We pitied ourselves a mite. We were already missing Sporty Creek. We missed Pap and Mother. And Holly and the baby.

We were about to start again when hooves rattled down the valley, at first distant and faint. We waited, lolling a bit more. Presently a bright-faced nag rounded the creek curve, setting hooves carefully among the wheel tracks. Saul Hignight was in the saddle, riding with feet out of the stirrups, for his legs were too long. He halted beside us, looking down where we squatted, and we saw he recognized us. We arose and shifted our feet.

“Appears your pappy is sending you to the boarding school at the forks for an education,” Saul guessed. “Aiming for you to soak up a lot of fool notions.”

“Pap never sent us,” I said. “We made our own minds.” Although we had made up our own minds, Uncle Jolly had stuck the idea there.

Saul lifted his hat and scratched his head. “I don’t put much store in these brought-on teachings, burdening the flesh with unnatural things, not a speck of profit to anybody.”

“Nothing wrong with learning to cipher, and read, and write,” I said.

“I’ve heard they teach the earth is round,” Saul said, “and such a claim goes against Scripture. The Book says plime-blank hit has four corners. Who ever saw a ball with a corner?”

We listened, saying neither yea nor nay. I expected him to mention the calf he had brought to Old Place with a cob in its throat. The calf now was nearly a cow. Yet Saul’s mind stayed in the rut of his thinking. He was a Hebron Dunford all over again.

Saul patted his nag and scowled. His voice rose. “There’s a powerful mess of tomfoolery taught children nowadays, a-pouring in till they’ve got no more judgment than a granny-hatchet. Alius I’ve held a little learning is a blessing, sharpening the mind like a saw blade. Too much knocks the edge off, injures the body’s reckoning.”

Dan’s mouth opened. He wagged his head, agreeing.

“Hain’t everybody understand what to swallow and what to cull,” Saul warned. “Was I you, young and tender-minded, I’d play hardhead at the school and let only the truth sink past the skull. I believe the Almighty put our brains in a bone box to keep the devilment strained out.”

Saul clucked his nag. She started, jerking her long muzzle, straightening her tail. “You young sprouts,” he spoke over his shoulder, “don’t let ‘em put nothing over on you.” His mouth kept working, but his words were lost under the clatter of hooves.

“I bet what that fellow says is Gospel,” Dan said, staring after the disappearing nag. “I’m scared I can’t tell what is fact and what hain’t. If’n I was your age, I’d know. I’m afeared I’ll swallow a lie-tale.”

“Saul Hignight doesn’t know square to the end of creation,” I said. Again I thought of Little Jolly, of the day he walked his first step. He had risen up, put a foot forward, and toppled. Up he stood again, brave and certain, heading for the door, going from us. Mother had wept, and Pap’s eyes got red.

We went on. The sun-ball reddened, flushing the sky. Dan plodded beside me, holding to a corner of the budget, barely lifting his feet above the ruts. His lips were pressed together, his eyes blurred.

“I counted on you getting homesick,” I said. But I was homesick as well. My chest felt hollow. I experienced a yearning I could not name. I knew then that Sporty Creek would forever beckon to me.

Bull bats flew the valley after the sun had set, fluttering sharp wings, slicing the air. A whippoorwill called. Shadows thickened in the laurel patches.

We came upon the forks of Troublesome Creek in early evening and looked down upon the Settlement School from the ridge. Lights were bright in windows, though shapes of buildings were lost against the hills. We rested, listening. No sound came out of the strange place where the lights were, unblinking and cold.

I stood up, hoisting the budget once more. Dan arose slowly, dreading the last steps.

“I ought never thought to be a scholar,” Dan said. His voice was small and tight, and the words trembled on his tongue. He caught my hand, and I felt the blunt edge of his palm where the fingers were gone. We started down the ridge, picking our way through stony dark.

  

*water dog: spring salamander